Is there any instrument you haven't tried, Aaron? I messed around with an HD once. Couldn't make heads or tails out of where the notes were hiding.

Have fun with the hammered dulcimer.

jrc

Post subject: Re: Hammering the Message

Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2013 11:46 am

Site Admin

Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:25 amPosts: 871Location: Richmond, VA

Cool. great sound ... saw a guy in Central Park draw quite a crowd (and making some nice $$) playing one using 4 hammers. It was crazy - he would alternate between them and occasionally use use the 4 at once. Likely as much for show as music, but he was very good regardless.

Well done!

_________________Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.Habbakuk 2:4

Walden [in heaven]

Post subject: Re: Hammering the Message

Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2013 1:10 am

Site Admin

Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:49 amPosts: 207Location: Oklahoma

Thanks, y'all.

I've probably had as much practice on it since I made that recording as I'd had before it, total. I've had the HD for a couple of years, having gotten it on a trade, but I didn't know where to set it up in the new and smaller house, so it had just been sitting aside.

Judy K wrote:

Is there any instrument you haven't tried, Aaron?

Yes.

Judy K wrote:

I messed around with an HD once. Couldn't make heads or tails out of where the notes were hiding.

I had that problem at first. But it's really perfect sense. Just follow the scale markers on the bridges. Any string with a marker is the start of a major scale in one key or another. Just start on one, and go up one course at a time up to the next marker (this is four notes), then go to the next row to the left and back down to the marker across from where you started and go up four to complete your octave. From there, just go up four and over in the same exact pattern to do another octave.

Here. I drawed you a picture, so you see what I mean.

Attachment:

HDScale.png

So, just follow the bridges.

jrc wrote:

... saw a guy in Central Park draw quite a crowd (and making some nice $$) playing one using 4 hammers. It was crazy - he would alternate between them and occasionally use use the 4 at once.

There are double-headed hammers on the market that allow you to play thirds with a single mallet.

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Judy K

Post subject: Re: Hammering the Message

Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2013 9:28 pm

Site Admin

Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:20 pmPosts: 945Location: Southern Ohio

Ahhh! Thanks for the diagram, Aaron. Next time I get near an HD I won't be totally clueless.

jrc

Post subject: Re: Hammering the Message

Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 5:17 pm

Site Admin

Joined: Tue Nov 28, 2006 7:25 amPosts: 871Location: Richmond, VA

Quote:

There are double-headed hammers on the market that allow you to play thirds with a single mallet.

No sir, they may allow YOU to play thirds. they would allow me to look even more foolish than I would with one.

_________________Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.Habbakuk 2:4

Walden [in heaven]

Post subject: Re: Hammering the Message

Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2013 9:53 pm

Site Admin

Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:49 amPosts: 207Location: Oklahoma

So, the octaves are interconnected squares.

Attachment:

hdoctaves.jpg

It was Sam Rizzetti who devised the markers in the 1960's. The markers are now used by all makers. He had a huge part in the revival of this instrument, as he wrote the pamphlets for the United States government that explained to the public how to build them and such. He's still at it, as he designed the Piano Dulcimers that are now popular with many church musicians, as they are chromatic and laid out in a keyboard-like configuration.

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Walden [in heaven]

Post subject: Re: Hammering the Message

Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 5:28 am

Site Admin

Joined: Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:49 amPosts: 207Location: Oklahoma

The same scale pattern applies, regardless of the key.

Attachment:

pattern.jpg

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Judy K

Post subject: Re: Hammering the Message

Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 12:08 am

Site Admin

Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:20 pmPosts: 945Location: Southern Ohio

Love the list, Aaron! My own list would be much longer, but I have tried a few on your list. Oboe, flutophone, tonette, cymbals, and tuba unsucessfully (or uninterestedly after the try) and trombone and zither quite well. Your hammered dulcimer is considered a type of zither, just as the mountain dulcimer has been called a fretted zither. Think you've got both of those covered and could knock zither off your list.

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